


Speak Softly and Carry a Small Gun

by Philipa_Moss



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-22
Updated: 2010-08-22
Packaged: 2017-10-11 05:00:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/108688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philipa_Moss/pseuds/Philipa_Moss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A good point man should know where every member of the team is sleeping.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Speak Softly and Carry a Small Gun

It was a dream within a dream. The regular kind, the kind Arthur barely had any more. Of course, it took him a long time to realize. Even when he fell through the Empire State Building into a Venetian gondola steered by Yusuf dressed as a gondolier, he didn't catch on. Even when Ariadne climbed into the gondola beside him and started quoting Molière at length, nothing seemed amiss. It was only when Eames appeared, wearing tweed and some god-awful orange-and-pink shirt and grinning devilishly, that Arthur shook himself out of sleep and sat bolt upright in bed, alarmed.

He checked the bedside clock. It was blinking red at 12:00 AM, running on battery power. This must be reality; in dreams, alarm clocks told time as they were supposed to. Just to be sure, Arthur fumbled into the nightstand and checked for his totem where he had stuck it between the pages of Gideon's Bible the night before. Fine.

There must have been a power outage in the night, then. That clock had definitely read 1:30 AM when he had finally fallen into bed at the end of the day. Cobb had them running in circles after Jeanette Monahan's daughter, trying to find an in, and the long hours were beginning to get old. At the beginning, they had all thrown themselves into it with the enthusiasm of a college student preparing for an unnecessary all-nighter with his closest friends. Now, everyone's feet were dragging a bit.

As much as he wanted to just roll over and fall into a hopefully colleague-less sleep, Arthur couldn't quite shake the idea that it was possible this power outage had been caused by agents from Monahan Security. Before, Cobb had seemed paranoid, but now with the alarm clock flashing at him, Arthur strained his ears to hear footfall in the hallway and flicked the bedside light switch four or five times. There was no sound outside, but the lights weren't coming on either and so Arthur got up, pulled on a t-shirt, tucked his gun into the waistband of his pajama pants, and tiptoed into the hallway.

A good point man should know where every member of the team is sleeping. A good point man should also be well rested, and this point man was not. The guests staying in the first two rooms Arthur checked threatened him with more bodily harm than he could be expected to receive at the hands of the Monahan Security goons. The third room, thankfully, contained a very sleepy and disgruntled Ariadne.

"You're losing it, Arthur," she said. Arthur tried very, very hard to concentrate on her red-rimmed eyes and not on her oversized, very pink shirt that read, "Poke Me And I'll Kick Your Dick." "If they were out to get us, they would have gotten us by now. I'm going back to bed."

And before he could ask here where the others were sleeping, she was gone. The next door he knocked on was empty, and the one after that yielded Cobb, who obviously had yet to go to sleep.

"The power outage," said Cobb. "I know. I checked with the front desk and they said the whole city's experiencing a blackout."

"Where did the blackout start?"

"A routine check at the power station and a new ex-employee's stupid mistake."

Arthur shook his head. "They could have been—"

"Paid off?" Cobb nodded. "They could have been."

"So—"

Cobb held up a hand. "I don't think they were. Do you see any assassins? Get some sleep, Arthur. Tomorrow's going to be a long day."

Cobb looked as tired as it was possible for a human being to be and still retain the power of speech. It was like his head was surrounded in a cloud of static; his voice came out slightly off. "You too," said Arthur. "You know Eames doesn't listen to anyone but you, and tomorrow relies on his forgery."

"That reminds me," said Cobb.

Arthur groaned. "What?"

Cobb gave him the Who Gave You This Job look.

Arthur sighed. "Yes?"

"I need you to talk to Eames about the Porsche. It can be tomorrow morning, but I need him prepped."

Arthur ran a hand over his face. The last time he had woken Eames in the morning they had been sharing a tent with Yusuf on some what-the-fuck job in Colorado and he had gotten a fist in the nose. "Which room is he?"

"Next door," said Cobb.

"Get some sleep," Arthur repeated.

"I will," said Cobb reassuringly, retreating back into his room and shutting the door.

Arthur doubted it.

Back at his own room, he tried the door before realizing he needed a key. He checked the pockets of his pajama pants for the key and found only lint. It occurred to him fleetingly that the gun in his waistband was making an already disastrous apparel situation worse by tugging down in the back and revealing more than a little skin (not a plumber amount, but more than was ideal), but Arthur couldn't concentrate on that at the moment. The key was inside, right by the bed, abandoned in favor of totem and gun. He rolled his eyes, and then stood in the hallway, holding his pants up with one hand and the gun in place with the other and considered his options.

He could go down to the front desk and explain the situation—that was the simplest—but Arthur did not yet fully believe that this entire affair was not a Monahan Security ploy to get them at their most vulnerable. Plus he had a very obvious gun in his pants. Passing it off as a joke was out of the question—the last time he had tried to make an innuendo-filled joke, Eames had dumped a pail of water over his head—and there was no way he was setting it down somewhere to pick it up later.

He could wake Ariadne or Cobb again and ask to use their phone to summon the staff, or just borrow a credit card and break in. He ran up against problems on that front almost immediately. Cobb, if he was sleeping, should not be disturbed. Then there was a very real possibility that if he reawakened Ariadne she would make good on the tone of her shirt and kick his dick. She didn't seem like a very violent person in general, but there was always a first time.

It seemed like no matter what he did his life or his manhood was in jeopardy so, sighing loudly in the dark and silent hallway, Arthur decided to split the difference. He walked back down the hall, passed Cobb's door, and knocked on room number 216.

Even through the sturdy hotel doors Arthur could hear a groan, and a "Fuck it," and the creak of bedsprings. It suddenly occurred to Arthur that Eames might not be alone in there. The urge to run off down the hallway was strong, but Arthur suspected that he would catch more shit from Eames if he caught sight of Arthur's quickly retreating backside than if Arthur walked into the room to find the entire cast of Spring Awakening (playing in a limited run at the theater down the street) piled on top of him.

(Arthur hadn't seen Spring Awakening. He had had tickets to go with his ex-girlfriend, but she had dumped him via text the night before, and it didn't seem right to sit next to her in a darkened theater with "fuck you we are thru" sitting in his inbox.)

When the door opened Arthur took a step back. Not only was Eames alone, he was bleary-eyed, far from fresh smelling, and, Arthur thought, only recently sober.

"What. Is that? I asked myself," Eames said, standing in the doorway, rubbing a hand repeatedly over his face. "I asked myself, what twisted sod would come knocking on my door at this hour? I should have known it would be you."

"I locked myself out," said Arthur. He pulled the gun out of his pants. "And I couldn't go down to reception with this."

"Darling!" said Eames, still groggy but managing to capture some of his usual leer. "I didn't know you cared!"

Arthur shook his head and elbowed past Eames into the room.

"Yes, yes, by all means, make yourself at home." Eames said, closing the door.

Arthur laid the gun down on the desk. He glanced at the beds. Eames had been sleeping in the one closest to the window, farthest from the door. It had long been Arthur's contention that you could tell a lot about a person based on which hotel room bed they chose to sleep in, given a choice.

Eames had caught him looking. "What?" He had perched on the rolling chair beside the desk, and he was idly turning the chair back and forth, prodding the ground with one bare foot.

"I was sure you'd have someone in here with you," said Arthur.

Eames snickered. "Didn't you just. Anyone in particular in mind?"

Before Arthur could reply, Eames suddenly noticed that the room was still dark, despite his efforts to turn on the lights when he stumbled to the door half asleep. Arthur could practically see all the possibilities running through his head. Eames stood up, ready. "The lights are off. The hallway lights were off."

"A power outage."

"Do you think—?"

"Cobb doesn't. I'm not so sure." He gestured at his gun on the table. "It's why I forgot my key."

Eames nodded. "Sleep here. That way if they do come, I can hide behind you and use you as a human shield."

Arthur shook his head. "I'll still be locked out in the morning."

"Yes," said Eames. "But," and he checked his cell phone, resting on the desk, plugged in but obviously no longer charging, "it's 4:30. That's three good hours before we have to get up. I don't want you falling asleep while you're supposed to be covering my ass."

"Speaking of which," Arthur said, "Cobb wants to know: are you going to be all right driving the Porsche?"

"Arthur," said Eames, "I have abilities you can only dream of." He chuckled. "Also, what red-blooded man wouldn't jump at the chance to drive one of those buggers?"

"There's going to be a box under the passenger seat if everything goes smoothly. Before you pick up Miss Monahan—"

"I know, I know. We've been through this a hundred times," said Eames. He walked to his bed and flopped down on it. "I'm bushed. You can keep talking all you want. I'm getting some shut-eye."

"There was just one more thing." Arthur turned to the desk and opened Eames' computer, which was thankfully running on reserve battery. "There are some notes in the file I e-mailed you on the best routes to take. You're less likely to run into projections if you follow Ariadne's instructions exactly, and—"

He didn't get any further. Eames had gotten out of bed, crossed the room in two strides, grabbed Arthur around the waist and started tugging him across to the second bed. "You will sleep or so help me Christ I will put a bullet in your brain."

Arthur tried to get a grip, to swing around and punch him, but Eames was using every trick in the book to keep Arthur's fingers away from his eyes and his feet away from his shins. In the end, he wound up on his back on the bed, legs squirming ineffectually as Eames straddled him and held his arms down. "Get the fuck off me," Arthur said.

"Do you really want me to?" Eames was grinning, but the grin hadn't quite reached his eyes.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

Eames didn't move. An ambulance shrieked by in the street outside and both he and Arthur tensed until the siren faded into the distance. Eames wet his lips. "We're truly never going to talk about it?"

Arthur turned his head away. "I hadn't been planning on it, no."

Eames let go of his arms and sat back. "I realize I'm not one to talk, but you've made me feel a little cheap."

Arthur pushed himself up on his hands and shoved Eames off. Eames rolled over and sat next to Arthur on the bed. The moonlight through the window provided enough light to see by, but not quite enough to see well. It was impossible to tell, for example, whether Eames was genuinely bothered or just pretending to be bothered, merely by looking at his face.

"It happened once," Arthur began.

Eames scratched his head. "Now, help me, darling, what was 'it' exactly?"

Arthur sighed, lowered his head into his hands, and said through his fingers, "We slept together."

Eames cupped a hand around his ear. "What was that? I didn't quite hear you."

Arthur dropped his hands. "When we were sharing a room in Berlin we drank too much and you kissed me and we ended up having sex." He sighed. "Cobb should have known better than to make us share."

Eames shook his head. "Pretend all you like. You and I both know Cobb doesn't make you do anything you don't want to do."

Someone was walking down the hallway. Arthur held up a hand and Eames stopped talking and they both sat on the bed in silence. As the footsteps got closer, Arthur got off the bed without a sound, crossed to the desk, grabbed his gun and hurried to the door, standing to the side, away from the peephole (not that anyone could see in this darkness). Behind him Eames had found his own gun—regular-sized, thank goodness; they would have enough trouble with the hotel management without Eames blowing holes in the walls like he did that one time in Atlanta—and was coming up behind Arthur. Into his ear on the ghost of a breath: "You get behind the door. Open on my signal."

"You get behind the door," Arthur hissed back.

"Don't be petty, pet," Eames grinned against his ear.

Arthur slid forward until he was just beside the door, then he watched as Eames raised his arm high and let it drop. He wrenched the door open and Eames barreled out into the hall. As soon as he could force himself around the door, Arthur followed, only to find Yusuf, hands in the air, his back to the hallway wall, Eames' gun in his face.

"Why are all the lights out?" Yusuf asked.

Arthur sagged against the doorframe, all the energy suddenly drained out of him. Eames laughed, lowered his gun, and said to the chemist, "Power failure, Yusuf. Go back to bed."

Yusuf didn't move. "What are you two up to?" There was more than curiosity in his voice. Arthur had a feeling he was holding back a smile.

"We're fucking," Eames said.

Arthur almost dropped his gun.

Yusuf burst out laughing. "Fantastic. Only you, Eames, only you."

"I'm giving him some notes," Arthur choked out. Then he remembered the truth was just as viable. "And I'm locked out of my room."

"Have a good night, then," Yusuf said. He peered through the gloom at his watch, which he clearly kept on even as he slept. "See you in, oh, just under three hours."

Eames groaned.

"Good night," Arthur said firmly, and retreated back into the room, holding the door open for Eames to follow more out of habit than anything else.

Once the door was shut, Eames started snickering. "Your face! I thought you were about to shoot me."

"Oh I plan to," Arthur swore. "As soon as were nestled in a nice cozy dream. Kneecap, I think. Or groin."

Eames wagged his finger back and forth. "Now, now. The wound may vanish, but the pain is real. I won't be much good to you if I associate your charming face with cock pain."

"Who said I wanted you to be any good?"

"I think you did," said Eames. Then he rolled his eyes back in his head and put on a high, in Arthur's opinion, entirely inaccurate and unfair, falsetto. "Oh, oh, OH! Eames! Yes! Right, right there! Oh! Yes! Oh fuck! Yes!" He cleared his throat, crossed his arms, and smirked. "If I recall."

"Well," said Arthur, coughing slightly and moving past Eames to set his gun back down, "for one thing, that can't have been me. Sounds like you were screwing my ex."

Eames blinked. "Ex…" he trailed off, then finished tentatively, "…girlfriend?"

"Yes ex-girlfriend." Arthur moved to the window and allowed himself a small smile. "I know you've had ex-girlfriends, Mr. Eames."

"Yes, well, indeed." Eames sat on the edge of the bed. "But you! You're so…" He gestured up and down, indicating where Arthur's fashion sense would be if it weren't the middle of the night.

Arthur tsk-tsked. "That's a stereotype Eames. It's beneath you. I don't assume you're intelligent just because you're British."

"What an honor."

Arthur sighed. "Look, it was unexpected, and I'm not saying I didn't enjoy it, but it's not going to happen again."

"You mean dating women?" Eames asked slyly.

"No. You know exactly what I mean."

"Well then let me ask you this." Eames cracked his knuckles. "Why is it never happening again, if you enjoyed it, like you said?"

Eames was using the same tone he had been using two days ago, talking to Ariadne about the motorway. "Why are the exit and entrance ramps so close together?" he had asked, his voice pure interest.

"Why?" Ariadne said, her eyebrows raised and her voice taking on a quality Arthur had never heard from her before. "Not used to shifting on the right?"

Arthur looked up from the compound Yusuf was showing him and across at Ariadne, who was standing very close to Eames and, he could swear, inhaling.

Eames leaned forward and braced himself against the table with his hands. He executed a vague downward-facing dog leg stretch, peering sideways at Ariadne as he did so. "Ariadne, love, I rarely keep right, if you know what I mean?"

Her brow furrowed. His tone was clear but, no, she didn't know what he meant, couldn't put her finger on the innuendo. Not quite.

In the split-second pause, Arthur had called to her, pulling her away without wondering why or to what purpose he did so.

Now, in the gradually lightening hotel room, Arthur paced the length of the window in his bare feet, peering down occasionally into the dark blue street outside. Eames had gotten back in bed, but he sat against the headboard, watching Arthur. "You're looking a bit mad, mate," Eames offered. "What with the pacing and the muttering and the hair aiming everywhere, you're not very Arthur at the moment."

Arthur hadn't realized he'd been muttering and he blushed slightly because that was, yes, nuts. He attempted to pat down his hair.

"I think I get it," said Eames, bringing his hands up behind his head, the picture of contentment. "You're a thinking machine; we both know this. You've got it together. You admire Cobb, you like Ariadne, you appreciate Yusuf, and you distrust me. You carry a small gun. God forbid you should get a hard-on, God forbid you should shag me." Eames shrugged and winked. "I'd probably be offended if I weren't enjoying watching this so much."

Arthur was readying a reply, but what came out instead was a jaw-cracking yawn. Then: "It's five in the morning, Eames. It's too early for coffee and it's too early for booze, so it's way too early for this conversation."

"Fine," said Eames. "Two and a half hours of sleep. And then the job. But this conversation will happen, even if I have to tie you up."

"Fair enough," muttered Arthur, trying not to dwell overmuch on the image of being tied up by Eames, and collapsed into bed.

"Erm, Arthur?" Eames poked him. "Will we be sharing?"

"We will," said Arthur into the pillow. "No funny business. I need sleep."

"Very well," said Eames, settling down himself. "After all, I'm not the one who staged a power outage, invented assassins, and locked himself out just to crawl in bed with someone I supposedly can't stand."

Arthur made an "mrrmph" into his pillow. Eames took this as a sign of agreement and prodded his own pillow into an acceptable shape before rolling to face away from Arthur and closing his eyes.

It was only a minute before Arthur turned so that he was facing Eames' back and spoke again, his voice sounding even to himself almost unbearably tired. "Before, when you threw me on the bed and threatened me? That was quite the turn-on."

Eames chuckled low in his throat. Arthur could see his shoulder muscles moving under his t-shirt. "Sicko."

"You love it," said Arthur, and rolled over to get some sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Luz has translated this fic into Korean here: http://blog.naver.com/luxaeterna12/20113117572


End file.
